Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon, numbers one two and three.

Reuters:

Some victims of the San Bernardino attack will file a legal brief in support of the U.S. government’s attempt to force Apple Inc to unlock the encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the shooters, a lawyer representing the victims said on Sunday.

Stephen Larson, a former federal judge who is now in private practice, told Reuters that the victims he represents have an interest in the information which goes beyond the Justice Department’s criminal investigation.

And:

Larson said he was contacted a week ago by the Justice Department and local prosecutors about representing the victims, prior to the dispute becoming public. He said he will file an amicus brief in court by early March.

This sounds like the Justice Department brought in the attorney, as opposed to the victims hiring him and him responding to the Justice Department. Two very different things.

And then there’s this:

Her son was killed in the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre — but Carole Adams agrees with Apple that personal privacy trumps the feds’ demands for new software to break into iPhones, including the phone of her son’s killer.

Complicated.

You can read the entire text of the letter here. From the end:

Our country has always been strongest when we come together. We feel the best way forward would be for the government to withdraw its demands under the All Writs Act and, as some in Congress have proposed, form a commission or other panel of experts on intelligence, technology and civil liberties to discuss the implications for law enforcement, national security, privacy and personal freedoms. Apple would gladly participate in such an effort.

People trust Apple to keep their data safe, and that data is an increasingly important part of everyone’s lives. You do an incredible job protecting them with the features we design into our products. Thank you.

Amazing to watch the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world take such a strong stance based on personal beliefs.

Here’s a link to Apple’s original Message to Our Customers.

This FAQ provides more detail on Apple’s position. It is really well written and clearly lays out Apple’s issues with doing what the government asks.

Here’s just a taste, well worth reading the whole thing:

The government asked a court to order Apple to create a unique version of iOS that would bypass security protections on the iPhone Lock screen. It would also add a completely new capability so that passcode tries could be entered electronically.

This has two important and dangerous implications:

First, the government would have us write an entirely new operating system for their use. They are asking Apple to remove security features and add a new ability to the operating system to attack iPhone encryption, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.

There are many ways to build a backdoor. Creating a version of iOS that makes a specific iPhone easier to crack is one way. But, as this cartoon suggests, creating a toolchain that would allow that weakened version of iOS to be injected into any modern iPhone is a much more frightening backdoor. Breaking into a single iPhone is a privacy issue. Forcing Apple to create an iPhone-cracker is a security issue. Both count.

Second, the order would set a legal precedent that would expand the powers of the government and we simply don’t know where that would lead us. Should the government be allowed to order us to create other capabilities for surveillance purposes, such as recording conversations or location tracking? This would set a very dangerous precedent.

Amen. This needs to be reasoned through. We can’t make this decision based on politics.

In response to the question: Has Apple unlocked iPhones for law enforcement in the past?

No.

We regularly receive law enforcement requests for information about our customers and their Apple devices. In fact, we have a dedicated team that responds to these requests 24/7. We also provide guidelines on our website for law enforcement agencies so they know exactly what we are able to access and what legal authority we need to see before we can help them.

For devices running the iPhone operating systems prior to iOS 8 and under a lawful court order, we have extracted data from an iPhone.

And on how Apple has helped the FBI:

We have done everything that’s both within our power and within the law to help in this case. As we’ve said, we have no sympathy for terrorists.

We provided all the information about the phone that we possessed. We also proactively offered advice on obtaining additional information. Even since the government’s order was issued, we are providing further suggestions after learning new information from the Justice Department’s filings.

One of the strongest suggestions we offered was that they pair the phone to a previously joined network, which would allow them to back up the phone and get the data they are now asking for. Unfortunately, we learned that while the attacker’s iPhone was in FBI custody the Apple ID password associated with the phone was changed. Changing this password meant the phone could no longer access iCloud services.

As the government has confirmed, we’ve handed over all the data we have, including a backup of the iPhone in question. But now they have asked us for information we simply do not have.

These are interesting times.

An image is worth a thousand words.

Anti-virus pioneer, Cyber Party presidential candidate, and sometime fugitive John McAfee made a public offer to crack the San Bernardino iPhone for the FBI:

Cyberscience is not just something you can learn. It is an innate talent. The Juilliard School of Music cannot create a Mozart. A Mozart or a Bach, much like our modern hacking community, is genetically created. A room full of Stanford computer science graduates cannot compete with a true hacker without even a high-school education.

So here is my offer to the FBI. I will, free of charge, decrypt the information on the San Bernardino phone, with my team. We will primarily use social engineering, and it will take us three weeks. If you accept my offer, then you will not need to ask Apple to place a back door in its product, which will be the beginning of the end of America.

If you doubt my credentials, Google “cybersecurity legend” and see whose name is the only name that appears in the first 10 results out of more than a quarter of a million.

As of this writing, McAfee’s offer was not accepted.

White House Petitions:

We petition the Obama administration to halt efforts that compel Apple and other device makers to create a “backdoor” for the Government to access citizens data.

The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of its customers. The FBI, is demanding that Apple build a “backdoor” to bypass digital locks protecting consumer information on Apple’s popular iPhones.

We the undersigned, oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.

I’m usually skeptical of these kinds of petitions (and there’s no doubt the administration will ignore these efforts) but it’s still one of many things you can do, including contacting your elected representatives, to voice your thoughts on this issue. I’m actually surprised there doesn’t seem to be a petition from the other point of view, supporting the FBI’s efforts.

Mashable:

Apple’s big fight with the Federal Bureau of Investigation could have been avoided if one government employee had kept his hands off the phone.

According to a senior Apple executive, the company has been working with the federal government since early January to try to provide a way to access the San Bernardino county-issued iPhone connected with Syed Farook, the gunman in the massacre.

The problem, according to Apple, is that the company was called too late.

That’s because the phone was apparently erased of any chance to access its data only an hour after the device came into government custody. An unnamed person in the San Bernardino County government — likely an information technology employee — reset the Apple ID associated with the iPhone 5C in an attempt to access the data.

This comedy of errors would be funny if the stakes weren’t so high.

Wired:

THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT filed a motion this morning asking a federal court to compel Apple to comply with a magistrate’s order that it help the FBI hack into an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooter suspects.

A federal magistrate initially gave Apple five business days to respond to her order, released on Tuesday, but the Justice Department decided not to wait for Apple’s response, noting in its motion today that Apple CEO Tim Cook had already indicated in a public statement posted to Apple’s web site Tuesday that his company would not comply.

“The government does not seek to deny Apple its right to be heard, and expects these issues to be fully briefed before the Court; however, the urgency of this investigation requires this motion now that Apple has made its intention not to comply patently clear,” the Justice Department wrote in its 35-page motion.

And:

Shortly after news of the new motion broke, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump reportedly called on the public to boycott Apple until it gives in to the government’s request.

Here’s Trump’s tweet:

Boycott all Apple products until such time as Apple gives cellphone info to authorities regarding radical Islamic terrorist couple from Cal

The pressure is ratcheting up on both sides.

Vox:

NASCAR is ridiculous. At the Daytona 500 in Florida this weekend, 40 souped-up cars will chase each other around a 2.5-mile track at speeds approaching 200 mph. They’ll do this for 200 laps, for a total distance of 500 miles.

But this is what’s truly crazy: For much of the race, the cars will be just inches apart from one another.

This amps up the drama of the sport. But the drivers do it for another reason: It helps them go faster.

Here’s why.

NASCAR gets a lot of flack (arguably justified) for simply being “roundy round” and not requiring much in the way of skill to go left for 500 miles but at least for tracks like Daytona, the abilities of the drivers are incredible considering the speeds they are traveling and the proximity of the cars.

Rich Mogull:

Don’t be distracted by the technical details. The model of phone, the method of encryption, the detailed description of the specific attack technique, and even the feasibility are all irrelevant.

Don’t be distracted by the legal wrangling. By the timing, the courts, or the laws in question. Nor by politicians, proposed legislation, Snowden, or speeches at think tanks or universities.

Don’t be distracted by who is involved. Apple, the FBI, dead terrorists, or common drug dealers. Everything, all of it, boils down to a single question.

Do we have a right to security?

This isn’t the government vs. some technology companies. It’s the government vs. your right to fundamental security in the digital age.

Rich expands on the points he brought up on my show this past Wednesday and, as usual, asks good questions. Keep in mind, there is no “right to privacy” embedded in the US Constitution so it is what we make of it. We can be secure from governmental intrusion or not. As Rich says, there is no middle ground.

The New York Times:

Law enforcement agencies have a legitimate need for evidence, which is all the more pressing in terrorism cases. But the Constitution and the nation’s laws limit how investigators and prosecutors can collect evidence. In a 1977 case involving the New York Telephone Company, the Supreme Court said the government could not compel a third party that is not involved in a crime to assist law enforcement if doing so would place “unreasonable burdens” on it. Judge Pym’s order requiring Apple to create software to subvert the security features of an iPhone places just such a burden on the company.

Interesting opinion piece by the Times. This story has a long way to go before it gets resolved and everyone is lining up and taking sides.

The Atlantic:

The winning entries of the 59th annual World Press Photo Contest have just been announced. The 2016 Photo of the Year is a haunting nighttime image of refugees climbing through razor wire over the the Hungarian-Serbian border, taken by photographer Warren Richardson. This year, according to organizers, 82,951 photos were submitted for judging, made by 5,775 photographers from 128 different countries.

This contest is different from others in that they are all “press photos”. By their nature, they aren’t allowed to be edited in any significant​ way. It makes them even more raw and immediate.

My thanks to Marketcircle for sponsoring The Loop this week.

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Marketcircle, the makers of Billings Pro, just released Billings Pro 2.2 for iOS with a significant UI revamp and new functionality on the iPhone.

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Georgia, writing for iMore:

With iOS 9.3 Apple is introducing a new feature called Night Shift. As the name implies, it shifts the color spectrum of your iPhone or iPad display at night. So, why is that important?

And:

We do most of our healing when we sleep. It’s when our bodies repair themselves and our minds process the information we accumulated during the day. Lack of sleep can have an extremely adverse affect on our mental and physical health. It can interfere with our brain’s ability to form memories efficiently and even reduce our immunity to disease.

That’s where Night Shift comes in. When you enable Blue Light Reduction in the Display & Brightness settings, it moves the color spectrum from cooler (blue) towards warmer (yellow).

Really interesting.

CBS, San Francisco:

Residents in a Sunnyvale neighborhood say a secretive Apple facility is changing the face of their neighborhood, for the worse.

“At three in the morning, they have deliveries. It’s very dark, very secretive. We don’t know what’s going on, but almost every night there is noise that wakes the dogs up,” Joann Porter said.

Click the headline link, watch the video to get a sense of the facility and the security. No fun living in a quiet neighborhood that suddenly becomes noisy at 3 in the morning.

Are there noise ordinances? Are people overreacting? Either way, seems like bad PR, a problem Apple should address.

Victoria Ho, writing for Mashable:

A huge rush of people signed up for Apple Pay on Thursday when the payment service debuted in China, resulting in system errors for users.

It seems the sheer number of users was too much for Apple’s backend system to handle. According to reports, many people were unable to sign up or link their cards to their Apple Pay accounts.

Sounds like Apple may have underestimated demand for Apple Pay in China. Short term a problem. Longer term, a nice problem to have.

UPDATE: This from Ben Lovejoy’s post for 9to5mac:

Update: Apple has since informed us that the comment by a local representative was not an official statement and has been mistranslated from the Chinese by Caixan. The correct information is that the ability to add cards was being made available on a rolling basis throughout the day.

Sounds like this is managed demand, not unanticipated on Apple’s part.

TechCrunch refutes a rumor that was flying around the interwebs yesterday, fueling a lot of arguments against Apple’s position.

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is getting more time to argue against a court order that would force it to break into the iPhone of a shooter in a terrorist attack in California, a standoff that pits the company’s push to protect customers’ privacy against the U.S. government’s efforts to fight crime.

The company’s response in court will be due Feb. 26 instead of Tuesday, said two people familiar with the timeline, who asked not to be identified because the matter wasn’t public. The federal magistrate who on Feb. 16 granted the Justice Department’s request for an order forcing Apple to help the FBI had given the company five business days to oppose her order.

Week from today.

Nicholas Weaver, for Lawfare:

The same logic behind what the FBI seeks could just as easily apply to a mandate forcing Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others to push malicious code to a device through automatic updates.

And:

Perhaps the greatest innovation in computer security in the past 15 years are automatic updates. It is automatic updates that protect the overall ecosystem, and anything which makes automatic updates untrustworthy would prove a boon to attackers.

Trust is a core issue here. We trust Apple with our data. Apple’s stance on privacy shows they get this and value our trust. If Apple caves here, the trust is broken, with far reaching implications. Imagine a scenario where you weren’t sure what entity was on the other side of that automatic update.

LA Times:

Unlike his predecessor Steve Jobs, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has never shied away from taking a political and social stand.

He was the first head of a Fortune 500 company to come out as gay, who also probably knows what a nonbinary flag is. He pledged to one day donate his personal fortune to charity, and he talks passionately about the importance of social justice, diversity and the environment.

But it’s his hard-line stance on privacy that could define his legacy at Apple and set the tone for the way big corporations deal with big government at a time when so much of our lives unfold on the devices we use every day.

And:

“This is an American company fighting an order from an American court,” said Chenxi Wang, chief strategy officer at Twistlock, a computer and network security firm. “This will absolutely have a ripple effect. Apple is now viewed as the flag bearer for protecting citizen data, and if they succeed, there will be a flood of other companies following suit.”

No doubt. Apple is the flag bearer for this fight. Though there is support coming in from a variety of sources, much of it is softly tweeted from the safety of the bleachers. Apple is putting their corporate identity on the line, risking all they have gained for a principal in which they truly believe.

And the face of that fight, the true carrier of the banner, is Tim Cook. A legacy is being created.

The Guardian:

When about two dozen privacy advocates stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the downtown San Francisco Apple store on Wednesday, it may have been the first time a demonstration was held in support of the tech company.

“It’s not really a protest,” said Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “We’re here in support of Apple.”

Feels like the ’60s.

Mark Cuban, writing for Blog Maverick:

Here is my response to Apple’s refusal:

Amen. A standing ovation. They did the exact right thing by not complying with the order. They are exactly right that this is a very, very slippery slope. And while the FBI is attempting to be very clear that this is a one off request, there is no chance that it is. This will not be the last horrific event whose possible resolution could be on a smart phone. There will be many government agencies that many times in the future, point to Apples compliance as a precedent. Once this happens, we all roll down that slippery slope of lost privacy together.

And to the folks who say Apple should comply:

Every tool that protects our privacy and liberties against oppression, tyranny, madmen and worse can often be used to take those very precious rights from us. But like we protect our 2nd Amendment Right, we must not let some of the negatives stand in the way of all the positives. We must stand up for our rights to free speech and liberty.

Speech can only be free when it is protected. We are only free when we can say what we feel we must in any manner of private or public that we choose. We have a right to protect our speech from those, domestic or otherwise, who may watch or monitor us. Which is why encryption is vitally important to all of us.

If you think its bad that we can’t crack the encryption of terrorists, it is far worse when those who would terrorize us can use advanced tools to monitor our unencrypted conversations to plan their acts of terror.

If Apple opens the door for the FBI to access our encrypted data, we lose. The bad actors will find other ways to encrypt their communications (there are plenty of options). And if the tools to break into your iPhone fall into the wrong hands (arrogant to think that will never happen) those same bad actors also gain access to communications that were previously impenetrable.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey:

We stand with @tim_cook and Apple (and thank him for his leadership)!

It’s about time. Most other companies are too scared to take a stand on this issue. Good for Twitter for standing with Apple.

Popular Science:

America’s M1A1 Abrams is a top-line battle tank–a 67-ton heavyweight that can best any other armored vehicle in the world. Designed in the 1970s and first introduced in the 80s, the tank was intended for an armored showdown on the plains of Europe. Instead, it first saw combat instead in Iraq in the first Gulf War, and has deployed to multiple Middle Eastern conflicts since. Operated by both the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps (as well as several foreign allies), Abrams tanks still deploy to Norway annually, where the Marines test them in winter war games.

The tanks, fearsome in battle, are less graceful than penguins when playing in the snow.

My father was in the Canadian Navy for 30+ years. I have great admiration for anyone who serves their country in the military. It’s hard, low paying and often ignored work. But, on days when soliders get to do stuff like this, it must be a lot of fun.

Macworld:

Apple really, really wants you to stop using that old iPhone and to upgrade to a new one. On Thursday, the company announced the Trade Up With Installments plan, the third purchase plan customers can opt into when buying a new iPhone.

The Trade Up With Installments plan is targeted at users of the iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5c, 5s, 6, and 6 Plus and is only available at the Apple Store. You can bring in your old iPhone and Apple will give you credit for the device, and then you can pay off the new unlocked iPhone in monthly installments.

This sounds like a great plan to get newer iPhones in the hands of those who want the latest and greatest iPhones but just don’t have $600+ to put down upfront. I hope this program is available outside the US.

Techcrunch:

Today, Apple is issuing an updated version of iOS 9.2.1 for users that update their iPhones via iTunes only. This update will restore phones ‘bricked’ or disabled by Error 53 and will prevent future iPhones that have had their home button (or the cable) replaced by third party repair centers from being disabled.

A new support document on Apple’s site has been issued that details the causes and repair methods for Error 53.

Good move on Apple’s part to make this right.

Bloomberg:

At the center of all this is Srouji, 51, an Israeli who joined Apple after jobs at Intel and IBM. He’s compact, he’s intense, and he speaks Arabic, Hebrew, and French. His English is lightly accented and, when the subject has anything to do with Apple, nonspecific bordering on koanlike. “Hard is good. Easy is a waste of time,” he says when asked about increasingly thin iPhone designs. “The chip architects at Apple are artists, the engineers are wizards,” he answers another question. He’ll elaborate a bit when the topic is general. “When designers say, ‘This is hard,’ ” he says, “my rule of thumb is if it’s not gated by physics, that means it’s hard but doable.”

Those of us old enough to remember the anemic processors in Macs of the past can marvel at the power of the present day chips. It can’t be overstated how important Apple making their own chips is and, therefore, how important this guy is.

Just watch the video. The guitar is very cool looking, but listening to it, I feel like I’m just missing the feel of the wood. Still, incredibly innovative design, worth a look. Be sure to check out the snap-on acryclic back at about 5:32 into the video, gives your thumb something to hook onto.

Reuters:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld Apple Inc’s $450 million settlement of claims that it harmed consumers by conspiring with five publishers to raise e-book prices.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected a challenge by e-books purchaser John Bradley to the fairness, reasonableness and adequacy of Apple’s class-action antitrust settlement with consumers and 33 state attorneys general.

Looks like this could be the final word on the e-book antitrust class-action lawsuit.